Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), Monday 13 October 1913, page 5


PANAMA CANAL

THE MEETING OF THE WATERS

CEREMONY BY PRESIDENT

WILSON.

WASHINGTON, October 19.

Dr. Wilson, the President of the United States, pressed an electric but-ton at the White House, Washington, to-day, and exploded a huge charge of dynamite under the Gamboa Dyke, in the Panama Canal, a distance of 4,000 miles, thus allowing the visitors of the Gatun Lake to flow into the Culebra

Cut.

Light draught vowels are now able to navigate the greater part of the Panama. Canal. The steam dredges bate started the work of deepening, the channel, taking the place of the steam navvies and the railway.

The Pacific Coast cities celebrated the blowing up of the dyke by the ringing of bells, the blowing of sirens and whistles, and the stoppages of the car

services.

The waters of the Pacific and the Atlantic are not actually united yet, as the Culebra Cut is 85 feet over the sealevel, but the waters of the Gatun Lake friend from the Pedro Miguel locks to the Gatun locks, approximately twothirds the entire length of the Canal.

While the Panama Canal celebrations were proceeding Colonel Galliard, the director of the Culebra Cut excavation, lay dying in a hospital near Washington, the result of a general breakdown due to his long labours in the Canal

zone.

SAN FRANCISCO, October 15.

Advices received in San Francisco state that until further orders the clause in the Tariff Bill providing for ii 7 per cent rebate on goods carried in American vessels through the Panama Canal is to be ignored.

CELEBRATION IN LONDON.

LONDON, October 18.

Many Americans assembled at the Savoy Hotel in London to-day, and celebrated the removal of the last character in the Panama Canal separating the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and toasted

success to the canal.

AMERICAN SHIPPING.

LONDON, October 14. .

It is stated in London that Dr. Wilson, the President of the United States, is asking Congress to abandon the dis-crimination in favour of American shipping passes", through the Panama Canal.

A recent American exchange stated; -The revolution in the world's shipping business that the opening of the Panama Canal if ill effect is approaching rapidly. Before the end of this year it will be possible for ships to pass through the waterway, according to the most recent reports of progress, although it will not Ijo until some time in 1915 that the canal is formally opened to the world's commerce. A's while it is expected the ce nal will be ready for shipping by December next, even earlier than that light draught vessels may be passing through. As the greater part of the canal 'prism already had been put to its final depth, small vessels probably will navigate it safely within)! a few days after, October 15 next, when the Gamboa?, dyke is to be blown up, thus admitting to the Culebra level the great store of water in Gatun lake.

There are thirty-four steam shovels now | in the cut. They are imperilling only 800,COO cubic, yards of earth and lock per month, which output will be greatly reduced as the depth of the cut increases and the available room for shovelling becomes less. Colonel Goethals, however, has itc-50'jibîeil fifteen dredges, with a monthly capacity of 1,500,000 cubic yards,

and sheep will be floated into the cut as

soon as the dyke is destroyed." Not con-tent; with digging away at the base of the fills, the engineers in their hose to open up fine waterway have begun to run' away the tops of the hills with great jets of water under high pressure, slii;e¡ii5- the earth into the bed of the court, whence it is being swept up by li-.icuctatio dredges and pumps and discharged into the ravines and valleys so that Away that it can never wash back. The official opening of the canal will be heralded by the passage through it of the entire United States Navy some time next